Nuts in New England - Philadelphia

Okay, so I've been SLIGHTLY negligent in posting anything on my blog lately.  But then again, I never really expected to have a blog, so I'm ahead of the game in some respects.

Anyway, I thought if I were going to chronicle my adventures in Philly, I'd better do it before I forgot all about it. After all, it's been six (*gasp* can it have been that long??) weeks ago.  Before you know it, I'll be headed back out the door on another adventure.  

Sooooo... Lemme see....  

Quick flight from Boston to Philly, grab a rental car, plug in the GPS and off to check into the hotel.

First of all, let me tip my hat to the Philly city planners on the whole sports complex thing.  They have the hockey, basketball, baseball, football arenas all in one neat area surrounded by a plethora of parking lots.  Now they charge out the nose to park there, but in comparison to the rest of the world it's fairly reasonable and a whole lot less stressful than trying to park at someplace with a downtown arena.  Kudos to the City of Brotherly Love...

After checking into the hotel, I jaunted off to meet @Gutter_CEO, @sissy452, @soul3208 and soul's friend Jennifer for lunch at Chickie & Pete's.  A Jovi lover's must do if you're in Philly, right?  Last I heard, Jon highly recommends the crab fries and lobster pizza.  A word about the crab fries: do not be misled my friend, they are not crabby at all.  They are merely fun cut potatoes sprinkled with the same seasoning they put on crab.  So no, they are nothing like BK's chicken fries.  These are really just seasoned fries. Consider that my Chickie and Pete's public service announcement.

Back to the hotel for a bit, where I saw a familiar woman in the parking lot.  I know that face, but where from...?  Hmmm....  WAIT!  I have it!  That's Richie's cousin!  I saw her on Facebook!  Apparently Richie isn't putting the whole family up at the Four Seasons, but it isn't my place to speculate on that.

Next, off to the arena where I was to encounter a whole slew of Twitter girls randomly throughout the evening.  Let's see... there was @ktfcoyote, @liznorwich, @CatteSambora, @JovisWillow, @TaraJovi, @jovixphillies24 and @gabbhook.  Wow!  I didn't get to visit with some of the gals as much as I would've liked, as the box office was a bit challenged when it came to knowing where to pick up tickets.  Hmpf.

Finally wandered into the VIP thingy down in the bowels of the arena.  While standing in line, I heard them playing 'Garageland' over the loudspeakers.  Or so I thought.  Nope, I'm a moron.  That was sound check!!  They almost played 'Garageland' that night, but opted for (I think) In These Arms instead.  It was still pretty cool to get to hear even a snippet of it live though!

Down to the Lexus lounge, where I enjoyed the company of @gabbhook, her husband, @jovixphillies24 and her friend Stephanie.  Oh yeah, @jovixphillies24 and Stephanie (who are high school students) won the Livin' on a Prayer video contest for Philly!  Their video was played during LOAP at the close of the show.  So VERY cool, and they were super excited!  Can you blame them??  I felt like I was hanging with celebrities.  XD

Finally wandered up to my seat ready to for showtime.  Opening act - Soraia.  Very cool band, but I didn't really know their music.  They had a good opening set.

Okay, camera ready?  Check!  

Oh wait.  I should mention something else first, I suppose.  

*flashback to Valentine's Day, Toronto*  

For those of you who follow the shows, setlists and play-by-plays, you may recognize this as the night the boys did Superman Tonight acoustic.  *THUD*  On the off chance you haven't heard it... well, you just must!  Richie's harmony and vocal solo were just stunning!  Unfortunately, all of the YouTube videos focused on Jon, and us Richie girls were left out in the dark (so to speak) on watching our man do his thing.  It was a very sad day :(

In speaking with some of my European Twitter friends, we came up with the idea of an all-Richie video, which I promised to do in Philly.  Thus the Richie-cam was born...

*back to Philly*

So, camera... check!  I'm not going to bore you with the setlist.  If you want a true account of the setlist and accompanying videos, please check out The 2010-11 Bon Jovi Circle Tour Blog sponsored by The Goddess Hathor and Company.  They do an amazing job linking everything up!  *tip of the hat to you ladies*

The highlights of the show (for me) were:

You Give Love a Bad Name

Okay, granted it's a bit overdone, but I have a special moment with Richie in this song.  I'm standing there in the third row, just bopping along to the music with my SAMBORA vanity plates flying over my head, and he sees them.  YEP!  AND acknowledges me!  We had a moment...  *sigh*  

On the off chance you're interested in proof of that moment, please check out the footage at 1:35.  He kinda nods his head and smiles, then actually points at me on the 1:37 mark.  

The More Things Change

Then a couple of songs later, he realized I was camera stalking him (:08), and started looking just the tiniest bit creeped out.  There may be a restraining order in my future. :P

Bad Medicine/Hot Legs

So the other main highlight of the show was the 'kiss heard around the world'.  Or at least around my Twitter world it was HUGE news!  In the middle of Bad Medicine, Jon lays a big kiss on Richie's cheek, both of them grinning like mad.  Guess who got it on film? Check out at around the 3:00 mark in the video.

So those were the highlights of Philadelphia for me.  Oh wait, Richie did give me another shout out for my license plate during the bows.  And I think I ended up in a pic of one of @BonJovi 's official tweets during the show.  

Philly was an awesome adventure, with a great show and a lot of great Tweeters.  One of the best times I have ever had!!!  

If you're interested in photos or all the videos, the links are below.  Next stop... Columbus, OH on May 10th.  Second row seat in the pit, backstage tour.  *giggles*  I'm VERY excited!!

Pictures

YouTube Videos

So why Bon Jovi?

I can't really remember how I got tuned into Bon Jovi originally, but assume it was an old boyfriend who led me in that direction (my teen years were filled prominently with hair-metal for that very reason, so we'll go with that theory). I know that I came into the Bon Jovi movement with the rest of the world upon the release of their third album, Slippery When Wet. I think I still know all the words to the entire album. However, unlike the rest of the female world Jon Bon Jovi was not the object of my intense fascination, it was the guitarist - Richie Sambora. His legs looked about 8 feet long in those tight black leather pants and, besides, I've always been a little out of the main stream anyway.

So I remember sticking around as a faithful fan for New Jersey which was released in 1990. That was also the year I got married for the first time and went through a lot of life changes. Unfortunately, that meant I lost "touch" with those boys from New Jersey for a while - a long while actually.

Fade in... American Idol Season 6, May 2007 with special guest mentor Jon Bon Jovi. In my heart and mind I was still the ultimate Bon Jovi fan and found myself in total disbelief that those Idol wannabes were performing Bon Jovi songs I didn't know! How could this be? I checked the my mental Bon Jovi files. I still remember my first concert ever (Bon Jovi of course) on July 19, 1987 so vividly. 1987... oh my... that's 20 years ago! How did that happen??? I hang my head in shame that I've missed out on so much. I mean, come on, they were even going cross-over with a country influenced album. I had to get back in the loop!!

That was 4 years ago and I have been cramming my little brain and ears with everything Bon Jovi I could get my hands on since then. Youtube, concert DVDs, CDs, news sites, the whole nine yards. I've been to 13 concerts (2 Lost Highway, 7 Circle, 4 Live 2011) since then with at least two more coming up in 2011. It's borderline embarrassing being a "fangirl" as my 16 year old son calls me, but I really and truly enjoy them on a whole different level now.

Richie still has a certain draw for me, Jon is more appealing than he used to be, while Tico and Dave are interesting in their background status, and what's with the bass player who isn't a band member after 14 years? I really want to mentally dissect them all and figure out their true personas, but I guess that's what you do when you're an obsessed fanatic!

Seriously though, I've discovered that Jon Bon Jovi is an amazing businessman, a genuinely nice guy and that I really appreciate Richie's voice more than his guitar skills. When those two sing together the harmonies often make my hair stand on end.

After the great American Idol revelation, I obtained 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong. Watching the interview footage included and listening to the unreleased material brings an interesting perspective. Jon mentions in his interview that some of these songs didn't make it because it wasn't the sound/image they wanted to project as a band, or "it was the sound for us now, but not for where we were going". Also mentioned is the fact that they write 30-40 songs for EVERY album. I guess being a simple redneck, I never realized how much work and thought had to go into putting together an album that made the exact statement that you were trying to make. I'm amazed at people that can put music together anyway, but when you add in the foresight, the vision, the business aspect of it all it's mind boggling. And yes, I'm aware that probably every band in the world has the same things going on, but KNOWING that it goes on with "my band" makes a change to my perception of them. I mean, sure, I still love to hear them and foolishly idolize them, but I also RESPECT them. They've been doing this for 28 years, really seem to still love it and say that they will continue as long as they have something new to say artistically.

Anyway, I'm still a silly immature Bon Jovi fan but I have the inner satisfaction of knowing that I can appreciate them on another higher level as well. So that's my story, goofy as it may be.